Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa stand out in veterinary and human medicine for their role in opportunistic infections and their pathogenic mechanisms, including the biofilms formation. It was investigated the antibacterial activity of melittin and antibiofilm of such bacteria. Twelve strains of these microorganisms isolated from bovine milk were used, as well as the strains S. aureus ATCC 12600, E. coli ATCC 8739 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 15442. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) were determined by broth microdilution technique...

The aim of this study was to determine risk factors associated with milk fever (MF) occurrence in Costa Rican grazing dairy cattle. A total of 69,870 cows from 126 dairy herds were included in the study. Data were collected in the Veterinary Automated Management and Production Control Program software by the Population Medicine Research Program of the Veterinary Medicine School, National University of Costa Rica, from 1985 to 2014. To determine the risk factors for MF, 2 logistic regression mixed models were evaluated...

The discovery that pericytes are in vivo counterparts of Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells (MSCs) has placed these perivascular cells in the research spotlight, bringing up hope for a well-characterized cell source for clinical applications, alternative to poorly defined, heterogeneous MSCs preparations currently in use. Native pericytes express typical MSC markers and, after isolation by fluorescence-activated cell sorting, display an MSC phenotype in culture. These features have been demonstrated in different species, including humans and horses, the main targets of regenerative treatments...

Agricultural pesticides used with the criminal intent to intoxicate domestic and wild animals are a serious concern in Veterinary Medicine. In order to identify the pesticide carbofuran and its metabolite 3- hydroxycarbofuran in animals suspected of exogenous intoxication a high pressure liquid chromatography with diode array detector (HPLC-DAD) method was developed and validated in stomach contents, liver, vitreous humor and blood. The method was evaluated using biological samples from seven different animal species...

In recent years, there have been a number of reports on the successful use of immunostimulatory complexes with saponins and viral glycoproteins as veterinary vaccines and in clinical trials for human medicine. The saponins Algiox, Sapanox and Pangisan were isolated and purified by HPLC from Allochrusa gypsophiloides, Saponaria officinalis and Gypsophila paniculata plants in Kazakhstan and they proved to have low toxicity in experiments with mice, chickens and chicken embryos. Algiox, Sapanox and Pangisan can be used to create immunostimulatory complexes (ISCOMs) similar to saponin-Quil-A-containing ISCOMs both in structure and in immunostimulatory efficiency...

Globally pharmacists are becoming increasingly involved in veterinary medicine; however, little is known about the level of interest for pharmacists playing a larger role in animal treatment in New Zealand. A key stakeholder in any progression of pharmacists becoming more involved in the practice of veterinary pharmacy is the veterinary profession. The aim of this study was to investigate views of veterinarians and veterinary students on the role of pharmacists supporting veterinarians with advice on animal medicines...

OBJECTIVE: During five and a half years of studying veterinary medicine, students should in addition to theoretical knowledge acquire sufficient practical skills. Considering animal welfare and ethical aspects, opportunities for hands-on learning on living animals are limited because of the high annual number of students. The first German veterinary clinical-skills lab, established in 2013 at the University for Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation (TiHo), offers opportunities for all students to learn, train and repeat clinical skills on simulators and models as frequently as they would like, until they feel sufficiently confident to transfer these skills to living animals...

Targeting antigen to dendritic cells (DCs) is a promising way to manipulate the immune response and to design prophylactic molecular vaccines. In this study, the cattle XCL1, ligand of XCR1, was fused to the type O foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) multi-epitope protein (XCL-OB7) to create a molecular vaccine antigen, and an (△)XCL-OB7 protein with a mutation in XCL1 was used as the control. XCL-OB7 protein specifically bound to the XCR1 receptor, as detected by flow cytometry. Cattle vaccinated with XCL-OB7 showed a significantly higher antibody response than that to the (△)XCL-OB7 control (P < 0...

Chemical substances applied in animal husbandry or veterinary medicine and in crop protection represent substantial environmental loads, and their residues occur in food and feed products. Product approval is governed differently in these two sectors in the European Union (EU), and the occurrence of veterinary drug (VD) and pesticide residues indicated by contamination notification cases in the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed of the EU also show characteristic differences. While the initial high numbers of VD residues reported in 2002 were successfully suppressed to less than 100 cases annually by 2006 and on, the number of notification cases for pesticide residues showed a gradual increase from a low (approximately 50 cases annually) initial level until 2005 to more than 250 cases annually after 2009, with a halt occurring only in 2016...

The use of synthetic colloids (SCs), particularly hydroxyethyl starch (HES), in people has changed in recent years following new evidence raising concerns about their efficacy and safety. Although fluid therapy guidelines for small animals are often extrapolated from human medicine, little information exists on current practice in veterinary medicine. The objective of the present study was to investigate current fluid selection, use of plasma volume expanders including SCs, and recent changes in their use in small animal practice...

Worldwide, more than 1 billion people are affected by infestations with soil-transmitted helminths and also in veterinary medicine helminthiases are a severe threat to livestock due to emerging resistances against the common anthelmintics. Proanthocyanidins have been increasingly investigated for their anthelmintic properties, however, except for an interaction with certain proteins of the nematodes, not much is known about their mode of action. To investigate the anthelmintic activity on a molecular level, a transcriptome analysis was performed in Caenorhabditis elegans after treatment with purified and fully characterized oligomeric procyanidins (OPC)...

In both human and veterinary medicine, urine specific gravity (USG) is commonly measured by refractometry to indirectly reflect the osmolality of urine to thereby evaluate the kidney's ability to concentrate or dilute urine according to physiologic need and certain disease conditions. However, for accurate interpretation of the significance of any value, knowledge of the expected USG for the healthy species in question is required. It is generally believed that fruit bats, and Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) in particular, are unable to highly concentrate their urine...

AIM: This study was conducted to evaluate the incidence of clinical mastitis in bovines of Jammu region, to identify the infectious organisms responsible for it, and the antimicrobial sensitivity of isolated pathogens. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted on cases that were presented to the Medicine Division of Teaching Veterinary Clinical Complex, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry, R.S. Pura, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 260 cases of bovines were presented from June 30, 2012, to July 01, 2013, out of which 30 cases were of clinical mastitis...

Fluoroquinolones (FQs) are among the most potent antimicrobial agents, which have seen their increasing use as human and veterinary medicines to control bacterial infections. FQs have been extensively found in surface water and municipal wastewaters, which has raised great concerns due to their negative impacts to humans and ecological health. It is of utmost importance that FQs are treated before their release into the environment. This paper reviews oxidative removal of FQs using reactive oxygen (O3 and OH), sulfate radicals (SO4(-)), and high-valent transition metal (Mn(VII) and Fe(VI)) species...

In remote wilderness environments, local people with traditional knowledge of medicinal plants are potentially important first-line health care providers. We present a case of a 31-year-old man who fell off a horse while trekking through a remote mountain landscape in Ethiopia and sustained blunt force trauma to the hand. A local mountain hut keeper examined the patient's hand and used heated leaves of the succulent plant Kalanchoe petitiana to treat a suspected metacarpal fracture. As first responder in a low-resource setting, the hut keeper relied on his traditional knowledge of ethnoveterinary medicine to improvise a treatment for a human injury in a remote mountain environment...

The tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus is a key vector of bacterial and protozoan diseases causing heavy economic losses directly and indirectly in animal husbandry. In the past decades, the control of ticks faced some major issues, such as the rapid development of resistance in targeted vectors and non-target effects on human health and the environment, due to the employ of synthetic acaricides and repellents. Eco-friendly pesticides for treating and controlling animal parasites such as ticks were mainly from medicinal plants and thus they form the richest entity for manufacturing resources for drugs...

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons now lists 'How to evaluate evidence' as a day one competence for newly qualified vets. In this article, representatives from each of the veterinary schools in the UK discuss how the challenge of delivering and assessing the concepts of evidence-based veterinary medicine in a crowded undergraduate curriculum can be met.